<p>
[quote]
If you want to get a job at the very best law firm, investment bank, or consultancy, heres what you do:</p>
<ol>
<li>Go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or (maybe) Stanford.
[/quote]
</li>
</ol>
<p>Brown</a> and Cornell Are Second Tier - Percolator - The Chronicle of Higher Education</p>
<p>This article was pretty depressing to me.</p>
<p>Well then that’s just perfect for my son who attends Brown and clearly has no serious career aspirations – he told me he wouldn’t consider working for the dreaded Vampire Squid of Wall Street even for double pay.</p>
<p>It is pretty depressing, and I also suspect that if researchers were to go further down the food chain, they would find that in this era with its glut of well-qualified grads and dearth of entry-level jobs in many fields, recruiters for a variety of employers that have traditionally been attractive to high-achieving students have long since begun to narrow their focus to a limited number of schools, throwing resumes for internships and entry-level jobs from the “wrong” school straight into the trash unless there is some sort of connection.</p>
<p>So far, graduate and professional schools seem somewhat more open-minded, but that could also change.</p>
<p>My big question (and that of frazzled kids)is whether firms that employ the very best or most accomplished and creative from lower-tier schools, however lower-tier or even “very best and most creative” is defined, will be able to secure the recognition or investment that can make them into serious competitors with top-tier firms?</p>
<p>According to the article, MIT graduates shouldn’t even expect interviews and Columbia is considered a second tier school. If anyone could take this article seriously then he/she must have graduated from some lower-tier schools.</p>
<p>Read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano”. We’re all headed towards that way it seems. </p>
<p>But then, if income has been pretty good as a factor in segmenting society, and education is tied to income, is that any surprise?</p>
<p>Most of America doesn’t work in IB, law or consulting. I suppose if those are your career goals, then the article might matter, but for most, well it just isn’t relevant. In fact, if the goal isn’t the elite firms and working in the Northeast, then going regional probably helps more than hurts.
In terms of law school, I believe more than ever than performance matters as much as anything else. Graduating at anything other than the top of your class, regardless of which Law School, makes it very difficult to land that first job. My friends who are managing partners of law firms, big and small, tell me this.</p>
<p>This article has my critical reading hackles up. It’s comparing apples and oranges, for one thing, when it begins with
It has long been known that the top law firms hire from the highest-ranked law schools. Investment banks and consultancy firms can hire people just out of undergrad programs; law firms hire people out of law school (or rather, in law school, where they may have undergrad degrees from Harvard or Neverheardofit U.). It is indeed possible to be admitted to a top law school from a less-prestigious college. It happens frequently, as long as the candidates have high enough LSAT scores and GPAs. Most of the considerable reading I’ve done about law school admissions indicates that GPA absolutely trumps ECs. A 4.0 trumps 3.7s who have built houses in Costa Rica, certainly. So this blurring of categories doesn’t inspire much confidence about the conclusions this guy draws.</p>
<p>I’m left with the sense that the actual journal article may say something more measured - but what fun is there in reading the scholarly research and evaluating the study parameters? ;)</p>
<p>Also, how cool is it that there’s a journal called Research in Social Stratification and Mobility?</p>
<p>Interesting article for the chronicle of Higher Ed to publish…</p>
<p>Did they hire the onion editors to write that headline? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Oh good grief.</p>
<p>The original article was written by an assistant professor at Northwestern’s B-school. Several of her other papers are similarly non-academic. I would expect more scholarly research from Northwestern faculty. I wonder if she has a personal axe to grind.</p>
<p>Well, then, don’t get a job at a top law firm, I bank or consulting firm. Most people have no interest in any of those things anyway. And the kinds of people for whom those are the only 3 careers worth having – or who perceive these as the only 3 careers where one can achieve financial comfort – aren’t worth the time of day.</p>
<p>“But then, if income has been pretty good as a factor in segmenting society, and education is tied to income, is that any surprise?”</p>
<p>But who – seriously – doesn’t know people who have done very well without being in these professions or having an elite degree? I think some people are just astonishingly naive if they don’t get that the restaurant owner who expanded his business to a chain or the potato processor who supplies all the potatoes to McD or whatever make just as much, if not more, money than these professions. Looking at these three as some kind of golden ticket is just dumb.</p>
<p>^ many, many less obscure small business owners make just as much if not more</p>
<p>It’s just one big meritocracy, and the only way those within it can maintain their pre-eminence is to keep others out. Why this should come as a surprise to anyone, I have no idea.</p>
<p>In my opinion the pedestal is starting to crumble anyway. Not that these institutions are no longer any good, but FINALLY people are waking up and looking at the real damage done to our economy by the likes of Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and so on (not to mention the numerous politicians and Supreme Court justices whose names I will omit so as not to get moderated). The more people start to trace back the connections to Harvard Business School and other breeding grounds for unfettered greed and unethical business practices, the less luster these places will have. Of course, that is not to say everyone who goes to HBS or Wharton or Harvard Law is sinister or corrupt–but I believe the reputation of these institutions will eventually suffer, as it should. Maybe that will be the start to some people opening their eyes to opportunities beyond the “big three.”</p>
<p>But so let them. If I’m not in big law, I banking or management consulting, what the heck do I care if they just want to recruit at Ivies? Let them. I don’t get why anyone should care.</p>
<p>Well those of you that have kids at “lower” tier school what has your child’s experience been? My son is a freshman and he attended a career fair this fall. There were plenty of banks, insurance companies, and technology companies that took the time to travel to Cleveland to recruit these supposedly doomed students. My son was told to come back in the spring as his combination of majors (math/economics) is in high demand but he needed a GPA to be considered for any internships.</p>
<p>My husband’s partner’s daughter graduated from Washington & Lee UG and has an MBA from Duke. She is working as a consultant despite her undistinguished pedigree. I am sure that there is some truth to this article but I think that the affect may be over blown.</p>
<p>Oldest who attended a school the writers of this particular article would assume graduated solely unemployable kids has a job for graduation in an impossible to get into career in the city of angels. Let’s just say she did a professional a favor the summer after her freshman year and they developed a relationship whenever the professional was in town and the professional hired her. </p>
<p>Oddly, we never worried about her because of our own connections, but she is making her way through her own connections. Teaching kids how to build relationships is as important as teaching them how to write an essay for a college app.</p>
<p>All that said, I would like to add that my husband works in one of these fields and while many come to play, few can hack the hours, the pressure or the competition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying He was “better” than the people who found it intolerable or who could not perform under those circumstances, just that he is a different kind of person. So, just because you get the interview or get the job, keep in mind that in none of these three industries is long term employment gauranteed, usual, or even desirable for many.</p>
<p>Also, many who found their way to these firms through alternate routes, did stay and did do quite well. You have to be a specific type of person to do these things. Not better, not smarter, just different.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>Older son, senior physics major/math minor, from a 3rd tier state school landed a great paid research internship last summer and worked alongside students from “top tier” school. He is also being recruited for some top tier grad schools. So don’t give up on the lower tier schools yet! Hard work, gpa and test scores do count for quite a bit. One of the grad schools contacting him wanted him in their financial analyst track. He isn’t interested more of a biophysics kind of guy!</p>